I’ve been fascinated with making art since childhood, though it took awhile to learn that it was what I wanted to do. My mother jokes that at least now it’s on paper and not crayons on the walls. Truth is, the wall is never off the table. I just don’t let my parents know that.

Discovering I was an artist was easy compared to figuring out what I wanted to do with it and how; this led me to earning a BFA for graphic design and creating a comic strip for the college newspaper, to experimenting with jewelry-making, photography, and even knitting. Grief and a life-changing event at age 28 brought me to mixed media with such works as altered books and visual journals as a way to express my feelings. However, it was encouragement from friend and fellow artist, Emily Justice, that led me back to printmaking in 2018.

While I plan on continuing with linoblocks and mixed media collage, I like branching out and learning new things and new techniques. Recently, I learned about collagraphs, and now I want to find ways to bring more of my collage and mixed media work into my prints. I am excited to experiment with monoprints and collagraphs in this way, in the future.

My influences are varied from comic creators to fine artists to writers: David Mack (Kabuki), Jeff Smith (Bone), Rumiko Takahashi (Ranma ½), Terry Pratchett, Japanese block prints, the printers and poster makers of the Art Nouveau period like Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, the animation of Studio Ghibli, Looney Tunes, Disney, and Hanna Barbera studios, pop culture, but most importantly: Nanci Zimmer, my high school art teacher Frank Mross, my dear friend and renaissance woman Alice Woodside, and college printmaking professor Evan Lindquist.